Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #1)(54)

They all looked at her for a moment, but no one said a word. Finally, Sabine blurted out, “I’ve lost a lot, too. You’re the only family I have left, Maryse. Don’t ask me to leave you alone, or you’re going to piss me off.” Sabine stared defiantly at Maryse, and Maryse knew it was hopeless. This was one of those areas where she and Sabine were cut from the same cloth.

Hurt one, you hurt the other.

And Maryse was forced to admit that if the situation were reversed, it would take her own death to peel her off protecting her friend. She shook her head at the impossibility of the situation, not having a clue how to proceed. “Well, did you geniuses come up with any way to get me out of this?”

They all shook their heads. Finally, Luc cleared his throat and spoke, his voice barely disguising his anger. “This entire situation is ridiculous. What the hell was that woman thinking? It’s no wonder everyone hated her.”

“Got that one right,” Mildred agreed, and gave Luc a nod.

Maryse sighed. “I don’t know what Helena was thinking.” Even though I talk to her on a semi-regular basis. “Probably she just thought that the land would remain in the care of the state. And as long as I owned it, Mudbug wouldn’t become one big oil field.”

Mildred wasn’t convinced. “Helena or her attorney should have known that worthless son and husband of hers wouldn’t let you keep something so valuable.”

Maryse stared at the wall for a moment, casting her mind back to the will reading. “I got the impression that all the ‘rules’ of the inheritance weren’t exactly in the forefront of Wheeler’s mind. He even said he needed to review everything again before we talked because it had been so long since he’d read everything over. Probably Helena forgot too, since she inherited everything as a child.”

Luc shook his head. “Well, Helena should have reread the rules before she handed you a death sentence.”

“There’s nothing that can be done about this clause?” Mildred asked. “Can’t you just give the land back?”

Maryse shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve never asked.”

Mildred looked at the others and gave them a nod. “Then I say your first order of business is getting in touch with that attorney of Helena’s and finding out what your options are. He’s got to be able to do something to protect you.”

“Maybe,” Maryse said. It was a thought, anyway, and better than anything Maryse had come up with so far. “I’ll call him as soon as his office opens.”

Sabine nodded to Mildred, then looked over at Maryse. “And what do you plan on doing today? We don’t think you should be alone. One of us should be with you at all times, and we don’t think you should be in the bayou at all.”

Maryse stared at them. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t spend your entire day following me around. Mildred, you have a hotel to run. Sabine, you have a business, and Luc…” What the hell did Luc do exactly? “Luc has to do whatever it is he does for the state. Besides, I’d like to know what any of you could have done to protect me from that explosion. More likely, you’d have been hurt as much or more than I was.”

“I can stick with you,” Luc said. “I have a ton of vacation accrued. Long overdue, as a matter of fact. I can take a couple of days until the attorney can figure something else out.”

Maryse stared at Luc in disbelief. “You actually want me to spend every waking hour of my day with you? Take you everywhere I go? We don’t get along all that great in the few minutes a day we’re in contact at the office. How the heck do you think we can manage an entire day?”

Luc shrugged. “I get along just fine. You’re the one with the problem.”

Maryse felt her pulse quicken. Luc was right. She was the one with the problem. The main problem being that even a small amount of time around Luc LeJeune led to thoughts that she had no business thinking. How in the world was she supposed to manage an entire day? “I am not going clothes shopping with him,” Maryse said finally, “and that’s my first order of business for today.”

“Oh, c’mon, Maryse,” Sabine pleaded. “What’s the big deal? It’s not like he’s going to follow you into the dressing room.”

Luc perked up a bit and smiled, and Maryse felt a flush start at the base of her neck and slowly creep up her face. She shot him a dirty look that should have cut him to his knees, but it only made him smile more. “I am not selecting undergarments with a man.”

Sabine laughed. “You don’t even wear underwear, Maryse.”

“I do on Sundays,” Maryse grumbled, feeling her independence slipping away even as she made her futile arguments.

“It’s only Friday,” Luc said, and grinned. “You’ve still got time to change your mind.”

Chapter Twelve

Shopping with Luc wasn’t quite as bad as Maryse had originally imagined and probably not near as sexual as Luc had hoped. But given her slightly rough condition and the fact that her job didn’t exactly involve tailored dresswear, Maryse saw absolutely no reason to shop for anything cute or nice at the moment. Even if she was back in the bayou sometime soon, alligators and nutria didn’t appreciate fashion.

So a trip to Wal-Mart was as much shopping as Luc was going to see.